Activities in space are fundamentally limitedby the amount of energy required to raiseloads into earth orbit.

An additional requirement, when humans areinvolved, is the expense and additional massof life support and safety critical systems.Because of these reasons, conductingoperations such as protein crystal growth onmanned space missions is very expensive.

Teleoperation technology can thus have avery substantial impact on the cost ofmicrogravity operations by reducing thenumber of humans required in space for agiven amount of work.

Secondly, if the size of the teleoperation slavesystem is reduced, the cost of launching andhousing the robotic system is also reduced.

Difficulties

communication time delay

restrictions of communication capacity

limitations of computation power on board

These space systems demand a high level ofsafety and reliability. A mis-operation mayinduce serious damages to human life or tothe space system itself.

An example of a slave system based in space

Teleoperation in NuclearReactors

Inspection and maintenance is essentialin the nuclear industry. It is not easy tocarry out such maintenance tasks sincethe environments are usually highlyradioactive and are unsafe for humanworkers. The usual way of carrying outinspection and maintenance tasks inthese hazardous environments is usinglong reach fixed base manipulators.

Difficulties

suffer from low payload capacity

relatively large end point deflections.

installation and the storage of theselong manipulators could be costly.

Teleoperation in Diffusinga Bomb

Diffusing a bomb can be very unsafefor a human, so we use a robot to dothis and operate it from a distance.

Army readies robot soldier for Iraq

MSNBC, Jan 24, 2005

“The Army is preparing to send 18 of these remote-controlled robotic warriors to fight in Iraq beginningin March or April.”

Made by a small Massachusetts company these willbe the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat.

“Military officials like to compare the roughly three-foot-high robots favorably to human soldiers: Theydon’t need to be trained, fed or clothed. They canbe boxed up and warehoused between wars. Theynever complain.”

A SWORDS robot shoots only when its humanoperator presses a button after identifying a targeton video shot by the robot’s cameras.

Teleoperation in Minimally-Invasive Surgeries

an operation is performed withinstruments and viewing equipmentthat is inserted into the body throughsmall incisions.



Increase the surgeon's dexterity for difficult aspects of the minimallyinvasive procedure